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I am starting a new series on searching for budget running clothes. I truly believe that one should never skimp on running shoes and sports bras they are just too important, but can you get your running clothes on the cheap?

I'll be shopping around at places like Walmart, Target, JCPenney, and maybe even clearance racks at regular running stores, sporting goods stores, online, etc and seeing where I can find the best deals. Then I'll be putting them through the paces as I half marathon train and writing reviews on how they do. Hope you enjoy this new series!

I had planned to do a post about my training plan, but decided to pre-empt that post for a little half marathon blogroll.

Lately there seems to be a half marathon craze amongst bloggers. Everywhere I look is another blogger training for a half marathon. Or possibly I'm just paying more attention because I'm training for one too. Either way, I'm excited to be virtually training with so many of my blogger friends.

I thought it would be fun to put a list together of all the bloggers I know that are training for a half marathon. It seems everywhere I look bloggers are kicking butt and working hard to reach their goal of running 13.1 miles. My message to them: We got this!

Can I get a drum roll?

Brandon, who is kickin' butt over at So Long, Fat Ass will be tearing it up at the Skinny Raven Half Marathon August 15th.

Mike, who blogs about his running adventures over at Mike's Running Blog will be running the Run to the Rock September 11th.

That's my Facebook Status right now and exactly how I'm feeling this morning. Regardless if there's a party or presents, or whatever the day may bring I am happy, I am celebrating me.

I thought a lot about what I wanted my birthday post to be. Because my birthday is so special to me this year, this post by extension was special too.

I decided I wanted to not only celebrate myself today, but all of you too!

All of you who read, subscribe, and comment on my blog, all of you who chat with me on Twitter and Facebook. Those of you who put up with my silly-I-don't-have-a-clue-what-I'm-doing questions. All of YOU who keep me going doing what I do here. You are awesome! This blog has evolved into so much more than just talking about weight loss and products. I feel like I have a real community of support here. For that, I thank you.

When people see my handle "katdoesdiets" or my blog title "Kat's Adventures in Dietland" I think they often get the wrong idea. I don't really 'do' diets. I have done a lot of diets in my lifetime, but currently I am searching for how I can nourish my body for life. I think the word diet has a lot of negative connotation. Most see it as some crazy strict thing you do until you lose weight then you go off of it. To me your diet is simply what you eat. Period. I was being a little tongue and cheek about reviewing diets when I came up with katdoesdiets. Anyone from Colorado remember Debbie Does Donuts...OK, no topless reviews here, but it was sort of a silly play on that. I read a lot of 'diet' books. I love to research. I peruse a lot of articles on nutrition. But I don't really 'do' any of them. I think most of these things have their good points and their bad points. Even some of the crazy ones have a few pearls of wisdom deep dow…

If you're on Twitter you might be aware that my birthday is this Friday, the 25th. Aware because I can't quit talking about it!

I was thinking earlier and tweeted about why I have no idea why I'm so excited about it. I mean, I turn 34, not exactly a milestone. We're pretty tight on our budget this month since I bought spoiled teen boy an XBOX 360 for his 16th birthday (which is the 29th so shhh, don't tell). There won't be any celebration or big to do. And likely presents only from my mom and mother in law.

But still, I am excited about it.

I can't wait. It's a big deal to me this year. But kept wondering why I felt this way. Then someone tweeted back to me:

losingmybehind@katdoesdiets You are a different woman than last year!! You feel good!! You look good!! Your birthday will be a celebration of it all!!

Um, BINGO! She is exactly right. I want to CELEBRATE my life this year. I had to let that sink in a moment.

Have you heard of this new craze The Cookie Diet? Seriously guys, this is nuts! Let's think about this for a minute. You are replacing a diet of good wholesome nourishing food with six cookies a day and a small dinner. A total of 1,000 calories a day?! Can you say...nuts?! From his site www.cookiediet.com: "The Dr. Siegal’s COOKIE DIET® suggested daily caloric intake is 1,000 calories but your doctor may raise or lower the amount based on your medical history. (Always follow your doctor’s instructions). On 1,000 calories a day (or even 1,200), everybody loses weight. Therefore, your success is guaranteed if you follow the plan." I love how they cover their butts by saying see your doctor...um, what doctor is going to OK 1,000 calories a day?! Let's face it guys, there's no cheat. We gotta eat a variety of good whole high nutrition foods (in proper portions) to nourish our bodies so they are ready for good challenging workouts, and just life in general. Eat better, m…

Every Monday for a while will be Monday Miles here on my blog. As I'll be beginning half marathon training next Monday these posts will be dedicated to all things running. I am really excited to have an excuse to do more running gear reviews throughout my training process...and maybe even giveaways? We'll see if I can get any companies interested in sponsoring. THIS Monday however I want to say that I've chosen a half marathon...yay! I decided budget-wise it would be best for my family if I picked a Colorado race. Plus, I found one that is only $35! Since I won't have to fly anywhere I am hoping that hubby and I can even go stay in a Fort Collins hotel and make a mini vacation of it as a late anniversary (our anniversary is Aug 31). Who would've ever thought that I would think running a half marathon would make a fun part of a vacation?! Crazy how much our paradigm shifts. So, without further babbling: September 19th I will be running the Crossroads Half Marathon in F…

I am up early at my sis's and the house is all quiet. Love it. I started thinking about what to write for a post for Father's Day. I kept coming back to thinking about unhealthy and/or overweight family members. I have several of those, do you? It's always tough I think when we start making the changes needed to live a happier, healthier, longer life and our family doesn't.

I always want to just fix them. But we can't fix other people. We can't change other people. We just can't. It takes them wanting to change, choosing to change, then doing the work. We can be helpful and encouraging all along the way, but we can't (no matter how much we'd like to) do it for them or make them want to do it for themselves.

Several people in my family are overweight and I know from experience that preaching at them does nothing. I do still share with them what I'm doing. Talk about my running, talk about new books …

So, I'm at my sister and brother in law's for the weekend. We're running a family race tomorrow. Fun, fun!

I was talking to my bro in law about my writing, the book I'm working on, and the fact that I tend to start something and drop it after a few chapters. I talked to him about the possibilities of self publishing vs trying to get traditionally published, blah, blah, blah.

He said something to me that was so lightning bolt moment to me, yet should have been completely obvious. He said that I needed to write for me. Not focus so much on trying to write something people will want to buy/read so much or on writing something I hope will sell well, yada, yada. I need to write for me.

Um, duh! For some reason this just struck me. I have never thought of it that way before. He is absolutely right. I have no idea where this will take my (non-blog related specifically) writing, but I'm excited to find out.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post one of my new goals is to have a more positive attitude, and in specific to SAY positive things. Whether I particularly feel like saying positive things...or not.

I think a positive attitude is important. I also believe that speaking positive things is important. I really feel like when I say negative things my attitude and my day follow suit. Likewise when I say positive things, even when I really have to search for them, my day and attitude still follow suit. Words definitely have the power to build people up or tear them down, and that includes ourselves.

I envy people who are naturally more glass half full, sunshine, and rainbows. That's actually not my natural bent. I am more the one who will tell you everything that could possibly go wrong with your new plan. Most of my life I have spent negative, pessimistic, and even critical.

I am not sure when I decided to change that. But I did make a choice. I have to practice to be positive. It…

I am huge on goals. I think they are very important in life. Without goals...how do you know where you're going? I am constantly setting goals, reviewing goals, reworking goals, reaching goals, tossing goals out the window...

Today I set some new goals for myself that I'm excited about and wanted to share:

I joined a challenge to post something every day for 30 days here on my blog and/or you tube channel. I have been getting slack in my posting and I think this was just what I needed to shake things up and help encourage me to be more consistent.I finally made a decision, I will definitely train for a half marathon AND do a 10k as part of the training...now to choose which one?! hmmm. I will probably do my local 10k, but the half marathon is up in the air...suggestions? I would love to run in Vegas for the #mizboorun or someone on twitter told me about the Eugene Women's Half Marathon which looks fun. Of course, there are tons here in Colorado too...ya, I'm bad with dec…

Not sure where this pic came from, but I just love it. This is how I feel right now. Well, I was trying to do weekly weigh in posts on here. Lately however I am so much not obsessed with the scale that I just forget about it. I will call that a good thing.

I did weigh a day...or two...or three ago. Not sure. I weighed 172. Considering I was up to 177 after my Memorial Day Fail, that's awesome. However, I'm sure much of that gain was water weight etc, so really I'm down a half pound from where I was.

A half pound sounds like nothing, but it rocks to me. I had stalled out for over a month, I was getting stagnant and not progressing. It was beginning to affect my attitude, my drive to keep pushing hard. I was letting my eating and workouts slip because I felt discouraged. I am glad to realize that the changes I made recentlywork for me. Woo!

I feel very refreshed and ready to hit this whole weight loss thing right now. Feelin very ninja. That scale isn't gonna know what hit …

Rinse the beans and sort out any funky non-beanness that can be in dried beans. Now, most people soak their beans overnight...I rarely get this done. I simply dump the rinsed beans in the crock pot. Add water until about 2 inches above the beans. (depending on your crock pot you may have to watch the water level closely and add more later if it cooks down too far). Add the r…

This post has been a long time coming. It was inspired by my friend in hopes that it will encourage and inspire others. It took a long time for me to want to post 'before' pics of myself and then it took even more time to find before pics. I was a master hider. Case in point. Hiding behind the kids...then craftily cropped most of me out. I was about 226 here, that shirt was a 3X. Wish I still had it, it'd be a dress. Those are my 2 youngest about 5 years ago. I decided then that they deserved a happier, healthier mommy. OK, hardest pic to find and to post. This is my before. I quote my highest weight as 226, but looking at this pic I wonder if I was heavier. I wasn't weighing. I started walking and doing yoga, and even joined Curves. At this point I went gung-ho low carb...it worked for a while. Then I stalled out about: 204, bad pic, but this is when I joined Sparkpeople. Started counting calories and adding some workout DVDs. me at 200 lbs. Cut my calories even more (some…

The wonderful folks from Cheribundi sent me a four pack of their cherry juices to try. Opinions expressed are 100% my own and I receive no compensation for this review. Now when I got their email I was like, sure, I'll try it. But in the back of my mind I was a little unsure. I love fresh cherries, but I don't love cherry flavored things, or even cooked cherry things, like cherry pie at Thanksgiving, blech. This however I loved. I give the Tru Cherry and Whey Cherry Four stars and the Skinny Cherry I happily give Five stars. A little info from www.cheribundi.com: cheribundi™starts as Montmorency cherries grown in Michigan and New York orchards. We use a proprietary juicing process that was developed with Cornell University to make a drink that retains all the power and benefits of the nutrients and antioxidants found in the little round fruits.cheribundi™has more disease-fighting antioxidants than other juices and has been tested in the lab and field by athletes and people who jus…

Finally have internet again! That was rough. I've got reviews and things to do like crazy, and need to catch up on my blog reading since I haven't been on since last Friday. I was going through blog withdrawals!

Also, I am wondering if anyone has suggestions for product reviews. Obviously with a limited budget I can't review everything out in this overloaded fitness/weight loss market, but I want to try to do reviews that you guys are interested in!

Anything out there you've been wondering about...drooling over? Please leave me a comment about it.

5 am laced up my Pumas and headed to the track. The track I run at. The high school track is literally a block and a half from my house. Love it. However, there's been a bear in town lately and when I got there all the trash cans had been dumped and scattered, eep. Very alert while I ran today! Came home and had coffee with hubby. Breakfast was a cup of egg whites with mushrooms, spinach, and tomatoes. Yum. Midmorning snack was a chocolate shakeology and a handful of blueberries. Forgot to take a pic of that. Lunch was an Ezekiel pita with chicken breast, spinach, and mustard. Afternoon snack was a 2% Fage. I normally do the 0%, but the 2% is only 130 calories and so freaking good! I'm hooked. Sat at my computer and twittered and you tube'd a lot. So, ya...up to now, that's my day. OK, I cleaned house and did mom stuff too, but that's a given, LOL. How was your day?

About The Blogger

Welcome to FitViews! My blog about all things fit and healthy. I'm Kerri Olkjer, a wife and mom of 4 in Eastern Idaho. I blogged my way from a size 22 to a size 8. Then, got pregnant with baby #4 and went back up to a size 14, but we won't go there... Oh wait, yes we will! Though my journey has been a winding one, I don't regret a moment of it. I have fallen in love with fitness, run a marathon, and found my "I CAN". I love to lift heavy stuff and whip up fabulous keto paleo recipes. Fitness fashion is my obsession. Good, strong coffee is my friend #sorrynotsorry. Oh yes, and it's "Oaker" like smoker. BTW, when it comes to good health, sitting is the new smoking and standing is the new sitting. Up! Move! XOXO, Kerri O.